Lien Writer Help

Network Installation

Network Installation

In the prior DOS versions of Lien Writer® network installation consisted of installing the program on a server then setting up a icon or .bat file to start the program on the server directly no matter how many stations you were running. This was okay because the dos program was relatively small. But, if you are installing the much larger Lien Writer® for windows on a network, we recommend a different procedure. Otherwise your network stations could be substantially slowed down.

1) Install the program on your first station in the network. Do not install on the server. Rather, we will deploy the database to the server;

2) To deploy a database to another drive or network location selection the main menu setup option, deploy a database, and specify your path for the new database. Lien Writer® will install the database, copy your files from your old database location and store the new database location on page 8 of lien writer defaults;

3) If a Lien Writer® database already exists at the location for the deploy, lien writer will save the old files, update the location files and restore the old location data. It will not copy over the former location files.

4) Using the installed on the first station, start Lien Writer®. If you are upgrading from a previous version, don’t bother to set up the company or printer systems. You will be loading the old settings anyway. If this is a new installation, fill out the information as required and choose your printers;

5) If you are upgrading the DOS or prior windows version of Lien Writer®, use the main menu setup option, then choose the update data from previous version option and copy the data from your old dos version directory as described in the manual;

6) At the second of the stations, start the program. Don’t bother to deploy the database again or set up the company information but do select your printers and printer locations;

7) Once in the program, if this is a new installation, use the main menu setup option, then choose lien writer defaults, and then choose page 8. If this is an update of a prior installation where the program was connected to the same server location the program should already be connected to the correct server location and you can skip instructions #8 and #9

9) Press save and then the red ‘x’ buttons to exit lien writer defaults. The program will now and subsequently be connected to the server system for data, but the programs will run locally! Much faster as only your data will be going over the network!

10) Repeat steps 1 and 4 through 7 for every other station with Lien Writer® installed. Your Lien Writer® network system is installed.

Setting up a common defaults file: the initial.dbf (and .fpt and .cdx) files contain the defaults for your Lien Writer® setup. In network situations the initial file is set up at every user station, and not shared commonly. This normally is a good thing as each of the users can set up their own printers, certified numbers, etc. However, when using some Thin Client, Citrix and other ‘balancing’ systems type network systems it would be more advantageous to use a common initial file so long as everyone shares a common printer and other characteristics. There are two ways to do this:

Environment Variable:

1) Using Thin Client or Citrix environment (MS-DOS) variables: in those systems where an individual user has location space and the ability to create environment variables the variable initfile can be set to, or constructed, with any legal windows or ms-dos directory name, ending with a “\”.

2) Under this method users will have an individual default file, and initfile variable be set to a directory name for the location of the initial files (like f:\username\personal file\, etc.) And a copy of the initial.dbf, initial.fpt and initial.cdx files placed in that users personal directory designated by initfile.

Common Text File:

1) To set up a path for a common initial file path you will to create, with a text editor like FWM Software, LLC, a text file called initpath.txt in the station startup directory (most commonly c:\program files\lien program) with the same pathname as you find in your network data path;

2) The initpath.txt file must contain one line with that pathname;

3) When the program loads it will now look to the common initial file where the other files are located.